


Watchmaker's Eye

by daleked



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Empathy, M/M, Psychic, Psychometry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daleked/pseuds/daleked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You don't have to be an Empath to see that someone's hurting inside,' John says, taping the gauze down. 'Now hold still, or you'll start bleeding again.' Sherlock looks at him with a mixture of respect and understanding and, really-- aren't they in the same boat? Two oddities sharing a flat, patching each other up in the bathroom, living in the same spaces.</p><p>Psychic!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watchmaker's Eye

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from The English Astronaut by Simon Armitage: _And his hands were not the hands of a man who had held between finger and thumb the blue planet, and lifted it up to his watchmaker's eye_.
> 
> This AU introduces two abilities: [psychometry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometry_\(paranormal\)) and [empathy](http://paranormal.wikia.com/wiki/Empathy). I have not yet decided if there will be variations.
> 
> A word to the wise-- the rating WILL go up for torture and smut.

_1988_

'Are you a Psychom, then?' Someone jeers, and Sherlock feels a kick in the ribs. He curls in on himself and clutches his stomach tightly. 'Let's see if you'll ever want to talk about my personal life in front of everyone else in class again. Freak.'

 

+

_2002_

Sherlock Holmes has spent much of his life being called a Psychom, usually in a negative manner by people who have been on the business end of his abilities. It's almost a relief when he consults with NSY and they call their team 'PsM's, dropping the colloquial nickname in favour of an official-sounding abbreviation. 

'So you're psychometric, but you don't use your Gift?' Lestrade asks him. Sherlock looks at him, bored. He sees the lines around his eyes and the way his hands are in his pockets and the small curry flecks on the front of his jacket and the fact that his shirt hasn't seen an iron since it was washed. He observes the budding patches of grey at his temples and the tightness of his lips and the bulge of his pocket where the police badge is kept.

'You're newly promoted, you had curry for lunch and your wife is leaving you.' Lestrade's eyes are wide and Sherlock feels a secret thrill of pleasure at having deduced all of that with just observation. No input from his mind or hands, just his eyes. The cocaine dulls his Gift and fires up the rest of him. 'Not just that. This case is bothering you. Let me in on it, and I promise you it will be solved within the day.'

Lestrade frowns.

'I've got my best PsMs on it. What makes you think you can do better, lad? For all I know you could've just dug into office gossip.' Sherlock bites the inside of his cheek and his mind whirrs. The detective clearly isn't fazed by his rapid-fire deductions, obviously used to working with PsMs and EmPs and being read like an open book every second of the day. He needs something to impress this man-- something that will allow him access to the scene. But Lestrade lifts the tape anyway and Sherlock ducks under it. Officers around the scene glance at him before looking away and turning back. He can feel EmPs brushing against the outside of his mind softly and he swats them away with a free hand, heading towards the corpse. When he gets a good look at it, he stops.

Sherlock can feel the cocaine buzzing through his blood, firing up his limbs, and he smirks. 'You haven't been able to identify the victim, and you have no idea where she was or why she has dirt under her fingernails. Her wallet has no lead, either.' 

Lestrade folds his arms. 'And you know that how?'

Sherlock slows down to explain his train of thought. He is scarcely conscious of the way his hands fly as he describes the evidence. Dirt on her clothes, under her fingernails, wallet covered in it. And it's not her wallet. The soil especially heavy on her knees. She's a grave robber, and one of the recently deceased in the closest cemetery is a rich old man who insisted on being buried with his wallet. It was all over the papers. She's dead now because she has an accomplice, who handled the wallet with gloves and took the old notes inside, which would account for the patchy distribution of dirt on the leather itself.

Lestrade looks unwillingly impressed as he writes all of this down, and Sherlock smiles.

'All that from just a look? You're not going to touch the body? Aren't you a PsM?' Sherlock puffs up his chest.

'I'm better than a Psychom.' And he is. He really, really is.

 

+

_2010_

John has met his fair share of Gifteds. In the Army, they are there: PsMs and EmPs working alike. Psychoms seeking out the rebel forces by the things they leave behind, and Empaths to clear the minds of those damaged by the war as well as seek out nonverbal answers from prisoners.

John is neither a Psychom nor an Empath, but he works well and they respect him for what he does. The Ems know when he needs a gentle touch, and the Psychoms are rough and unpolished but friendly. He likes his troop, likes nearly everything about the arid desert except for the war and the fighting. The warmth soaks into his bones and stays.

Until he gets shot.

Ella, his therapist, is an EmP and she pushes softly against his chest with her mind. He opens up and lets the calm flow through her into him, sharing and relaxing slightly under her watchful gaze. It never escapes him that even as she fills him with serenity, her gaze remains clear as ever and she sits still even as he sways under the weight of her influence. When he leaves these sessions, the tension slams back in and spreads his ribs open to settle heavy on his stomach. Therapy is a temporary distraction, and John isn't sure he won't cave under the pressure to get better.

That is, until he meets Sherlock Holmes.

 

+

_Now_

Sherlock is a belligerent patient even at the best of times, and John is just about ready to sock him in the temple just to get him to stop moving. 'You appealed to the criminal. How? He listened and softened. I saw that. You connected with him.' John nearly knocks the saline bottle off the edge of the sink but steadies his hand and picks it up, washing the wound before patting it dry. His neat sutures against Sherlock's skin are dark and bright all at the same time, but the small punctures in his skin where John had to adminster the Lidocaine provide a sober edge to their reality.

'You don't have to be an Empath to see that someone's hurting inside,' John says, taping the gauze down. 'Now hold still, or you'll start bleeding again.' Sherlock looks at him with a mixture of respect and understanding and, really-- aren't they in the same boat? Sherlock, constantly denying his Psychom nature, while John is always mistaken for an Empath. Two oddities sharing a flat, patching each other up in the bathroom, living in the same spaces. John feels a sudden fierce burst of kinship and checks it over one last time before putting his hand down gently. Sherlock looks up at him.

'Thank you.'

John shakes his head. 'It's fine. We solved it.' He can still see the flash of the blade in the gloom and hear Sherlock's cry of surprise. 

'Yes. We did.' Sherlock's gaze doesn't waver, and their cramped bathroom is warm, and it feels very much like a home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to know what you thought of this.


End file.
